How cookies are used on food.gov.uk

Measuring website usage (Google Analytics)

We use Google Analytics software to collect information about how you use food.gov.uk. We do this to help make sure the site is meeting the needs of its users and to help us make improvements.

Google Analytics stores information about:

the pages you visit

how long you spend on each page

how you got to the site

what you click on while you’re visiting the site

We don’t allow Google to use or share our analytics data.

Universal Analytics

Name: _gaPurpose: This helps us count how many people visit food.gov.uk by tracking if you’ve visited beforeExpires: 2 years

Name: _gidPurpose: This helps us count how many people visit food.gov.uk by tracking if you’ve visited before
Expires: 24 hours (3 days for the 'register a food business' service)

Name: _gatPurpose: Used to manage the rate at which page view requests are made. This cookie does not store any user information,
Expires: The expiry settings are set by Google

Name: acceptAllCookies
Purpose: Used to remember whether or not you clicked accept or don’t accept for optional cookies
Expires: 25 days

Name: connect.sid
Purpose: Used to persist registration data through the 'register a food business' service
Expires: 24 hours

Google Analytics

Name: _utmaPurpose: Like _ga, this lets us know if you’ve visited before, so we can count how many of our visitors are new to food.gov.uk or to a certain pageExpires: 2 years

Name: _utmbPurpose: This works with _utmc to calculate the average length of time you spend on food.gov.ukExpires: 30 minutes

Name: _utmcPurpose: This works with _utmb to calculate when you close your browserExpires: when you close your browser

Name: _utmzPurpose: This tells us how you reached food.gov.uk (for example from another website or a search engine)Expires: 6 months

SiteImprove

Name: nmstatPurpose: statistics about site usage such as when you last visited the siteTypical content: randomly generated numberExpires: 1000 days after last visit

Name: siteimprovesesPurpose: Used to track the sequence of pages you look at during a visit to the site.Expires: when user exits browser

Name: szcookiechoicePurpose: Used to determine if you have accepted or declined cookies.Expires: when user exits browser

Cloudflare

Name: __cfduidPurpose: Set by the CloudFlare to identify trusted web traffic. It does not correspond to any user id in the web application, nor does the cookie store any personally identifiable information.Expires: 5 years

Surveymonkey

Sometimes we conduct online surveys to help us better meet our customers' needs. We use SurveyMonkey to collect responses to the survey. If you take part, SurveyMonkey will save extra cookies to your computer to track your progress through it.